It’s been a very busy couple of months so I am finally making time now to sit down and do a little catching up here on the blog. Since wrapping up in April, here’s what I’ve been up to.
I left my month-long house sit in Massachusetts and due to a last minute pet sit booking, needed to cut my time short in Wisconsin before heading to Oklahoma. I decided to opt out of any site seeing on the way home and condensed the drive from three days to two. It was mostly smooth sailing but I did have a bit of a navigation debacle in New York. For some reason, Google Maps wanted to take me through Canada to get home, even though I opted for the United States only route. When Google had me get off the main interstate in New York and head toward Buffalo, I thought it was odd but figured maybe there was some sort of backup and that this was going to save time. Well, before I knew it, I was approaching a sign that said “last exit before Canada”. I had my passport on me so that wasn’t an issue but I didn’t have cash for the toll on me as I use my E-Pass device for that, so even though I probably would have just rolled with it, I couldn’t. I took the last exit and hoped Google would reroute me back through the U.S. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. Every time I thought I was making my way back on track, Google would reroute me again back to Canada. This didn’t happen just one or twice. Before all was said and done, it happened four times, twice of which landed me back at that “last exit before Canada” sign. At one point I screamed at the GPS in frustration: “I don’t want to go to fucking Canada!”. A part of me wonders though if the Universe really had something planned for me there. I guess I’ll never know because my persistence (and lack of cash) kept me in the United States.
Once I made it back to Wisconsin, I had four days to hang with Luke and the animals, work, attend several doctor appointments, repack for Oklahoma, and lastly, try to find a little time to relax. I had my 3-month follow up CT scan for my stomach lesion scare from earlier this year. Luckily, I think, that is all in the past now as the second scan showed that it was gone. I’m not sure what any of that means as my follow up appointment with the GI specialist was canceled on me and I have yet to reschedule but I’m hoping if there is any further evaluation needed, someone would follow up with me. During my short time back, Luke and I opted to keep our monthly restaurant outing local and went out for sushi in Menomonie. Unfortunately, that wasn’t as satisfying as we’d hoped so Luke treated me to homemade shawarma my last night in town which was, as usual, delicious.
Before I knew it, it was time to head out and make my way to Oklahoma. With having such a short time to catch up with Luke after being gone for a month, I opted to make the drive in one day instead of the normal two which took about 16-hours all together. It’s been about a decade since I did that kind of drive in one day and I now know why I don’t make a habit of it. I was thankful that it was a smooth drive though and it ended with me getting to spend four days with the incredibly handsome Sacho pug. It also meant meeting the most adorable semi-stray cat which has been affectionately nicknamed Little Trash by Luke. He would come around every time I went out to walk Sacho and he was just the friendliest guy. I started asking around about him and apparently he’s been in the neighborhood for a long time. He seems to be an outdoor only cat who mainly stays near one house across the street as his ground zero. Rumor has it that he used to have a girl cat friend but apparently she is kept inside only now at that house he hangs at. I really wanted to take him home with me to find him a proper indoor home. The current life he’s living in Oklahoma is one that puts him at risk of being hit by a car, attacked by an animal or worse yet, attacked by a human. He also isn’t getting access to proper medical care nor any sort of flea and tick preventative. Unfortunately, even after getting all of the things to bring him back to Wisconsin, he decided that he’d rather stay put so I had no choice but to leave him behind. Luke and I were so sad, we really looked forward to finding him a loving, safe family to take him in.
On my drive home to Wisconsin, another animal rescue situation presented itself to me. I came across two dogs hanging out in and on the side of a busy stretch of country road. I pulled over to try to help. The dogs were completely drenched from recent rains and sometimes wandering out into the road in which people were not slowing down so I opened my back door, folded down the seats and tried to coax them in to keep them safe. Even though they seemed very friendly, they would not get in my car. Being big dogs, there wasn’t much I could do to force the situation. So next I tried calling the number on their tags. It went to voicemail, so I left a message letting the owner know I found their dogs and to call me back. I waited about 10 minutes or so and there was no call back so I tried calling again. Again, it went to voicemail. I looked up the number for a local animal control and the only place I could find was a local animal shelter which was closed, being Sunday and all. Next I called the non-emergency police and after talking with them, discovered that since there were no leash laws in that county there was nothing they could do to help if the dogs weren’t bothering anyone. I took a photo of the dogs and texted it to the number on their tag and reiterated where they were and that I couldn’t stay with them much longer to keep them safe. All in all, about an hour later, I reluctantly had to leave. Not too long later, I got a text message from the owner saying that the dogs like to hang out there when they’re gone and wait for them to come home but thanks for contacting them. I was furious! How unsafe! What a waste of my time! I felt so defeated at that moment. I couldn’t save Little Trash and I couldn’t help those two dogs. The way animals are treated in Oklahoma is just not what I’m used to. It was all just too much emotion for one day. I made my journey home over two days and was happy to finally arrive at home to receive comfort from Luke.
Being back home after all the travel felt good. I decided I would see if Siegward would enjoy walks outside so I purchased him a kitty harness and much to my surprise, he did so much better than I thought he would. Another day I took Sif for a little adventure down by the Red Cedar River where we did a short hike and then laid under the shade of a tree for a hour or so. I used the time home to also catch up on some garage decluttering I wanted to do and managed to get a bunch of stuff listed for sale which most turned out to sell fairly quickly. When I had left Wisconsin in March, there was still snow on the ground but by May, things were looking much brighter. I went out and purchased flowers for the yard, planting some in the planters and others to hang from by the windows. Luke had cleared out all the leaves and debris from our hostas and we built a rock perimeter around the two beds by the front of the house with rocks we picked up from Luke’s parents yard and a few from a local landscaping company to finish the project. Luke decided he was up for trying his hand at grilling and since his dad had a small spare grill he wasn’t using and willing to part with, it was a smaller investment to give it a try. I bought a couple of yard chairs, a folding table, and tie out for Sif and as a little family, we enjoyed hanging out in the driveway, cooking and eating a variety of foods before the summer heat got too intense.
Before I left for Massachusetts, Luke and I agreed that we wanted to replace the old tattered carpeting in the bedroom with LVP flooring. I found a good deal on some online so I ordered it for delivery and stored it in the garage until the time came where we could tackle the project. So once I was back from Oklahoma, with Luke’s work schedule being very light, we decided to take it on. We started by taking all of the furniture out of the room and storing it in the garage. Then we painted the walls a new color which was supposed to be spruce green but instead of what the paint sample showed, it turned out to be more of a tealish green rather than a sage green. We decided to roll with it instead of repaint since I was sure it would grow on us. Then, Luke ripped out the carpeting and pulled up all the padding that was glued down, no easy feat at all. Then Luke took off all the floor molding pieces. Once the floor was as bare and clear of obstruction as we could get it, it was time to lay down the new LVP flooring. Luke’s dad came over that day to help direct since it was something neither one of us had done before. After laying down the new flooring and then hanging up the old trim again, we decided that putting down shoe trim would be necessary to help hide some of the shortcomings of the flooring. After that was done, I spent some time cleaning up the trim, windows, air conditioner, and ceiling fan while Luke installed the floor transition strips in the closet and doorway. It all came together beautifully! The final step was putting together our new bed frame and night stand furniture from IKEA. The nightstands went together fairly easily but the bed frame was a different issue. With a few harsh words and a little perseverance, we were able to get it all together just in time for the new mattress that was delivered moments after completing it. After the mattress people left, I was excited to take all the new bedding I had bought and make up the bed. All in all it took 5-days, a lot of hard work, sweat, tense moments, harsh words, mistakes, recalibrations, plan Bs, last minute supply shopping but we got it done and are very happy with how it all turned out.
The bedroom remodel took us right into the beginning of June which was a lot less stressful for us. Luke made several delicious meals throughout the month. Sif decided to start using the recliner as his new dog bed. I started growing herbs in our garage window. Luke and I celebrated our 2-year anniversary. We also made the drive out to Mondovi one week to visit one of my client’s farms to try out their burger night and meet the owls that the River Valley Raptors had brought out. We completed our last landscaping project in the front yard of creating a new hosta bed where an old tree was cut down by the City the other year. As normal, all of our animals continued to be as cute as ever and enjoyed hanging out with us in the usual ways and with all their normal antics. I got a few new bookkeeping clients and booked another couple of pet sitting jobs, one of which started this month in Schaumburg, Illinois and the other in August in Rockford, Illinois.
I decided that on the way to Schaumburg last week I would stop and visit with a couple of friends in Madison along the way which was nice because I had not seen them since my birthday in March. I arrived later that night in Schaumburg and was pleasantly surprised with my client’s home. It was new, bright, and spacious and the owner was personable and gave me a thorough tour of the place as well as very detailed information about the house. His two pets, Jenny the chihuahua mix and Porky the cat, were super sweet and friendly. I felt good about what the next couple of weeks would have in store for me. Due to massive ongoing wildfires in Canada, our air quality has not been the best and here in the Chicago area, it was some of the worst air quality IN THE WORLD for a bit. The animals and I stayed inside as much as possible and I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to have central air conditioning in my life. Just the short amount of time it took to walk Jenny outside three to four times a day was enough to give me a headache, make me super tired, and just generally feel worn down and unwell. Fortunately it seems we are having a couple of moderate air quality days now which after what was happening before feels like pristine clean air. The other night I was able to actually see the details of the moon again instead of just a vague illumination in the sky.
The other day, on one of Jenny’s walks, we ran into a bit of a wildlife situation. When passing by the sales office on our way back home, I noticed a killdeer in the parking lot pacing and calling out frantically. Noticing she was by the storm drain, I feared she may have lost a baby so I went over to inspect to find out I was right. I tried to move the cover off and quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen by myself. I walked over to the sales office and there was one person inside. I explained what was going on and she called one of her construction crew members over from another lot. He came equipped with a hammer and was able to pull the cover off. The sales office woman had brought out a tablecloth and we were able to lower it in the hole, coax the baby bird onto it and lift it out. I placed the tablecloth with the baby bird on the grass near the parking lot and waited in the distance until the mom came back. It only took about 5 minutes or so and mom and baby were reunited and back on their way to bird things. I only wish I had my phone with me when it all went down so I could get photos and video.
I have one more week left in Schaumburg before I head back to Wisconsin and intend to use that time to relax after a hectic work week last week. Of course there will always be work mixed in there too but hopefully more relaxing than work this coming week. I have a few exciting things in the works and I look forward to hopefully being able to share more about that next month. As always, stay tuned and thanks for following along on my adventures!
An Unquiet Life 